Australia

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by chendoh

No, I have not, was this the lunch break?

LOL
No, at lunch they drew pretty pictures.

[PuGZ]

For what it's worth, those crazy right turn lanes only exist at a few intersections in the Melbourne CBD and they're to avoid hassles with trams (ie: never play chicken with a tram )

[Michaelangelica]

Now that we have sorted some language road rules and local body language; Here is something for the Yanks.

Not only does Australia fight all you wars for you; knowing you are going broke, we have just lent you $51 Billion (AUD; $70cAU =$1US)
This, the proceeds of the last three budget surplices and the sale of the publicly owned "Telsra" back to the public.
(We decided not to spend these- Chinese Economic Miracle Windfall Budgets-on eduction, health, science, research & welfare as they are all rolling in money already)
Prime Minister Howard affectionately know by his adoring fans as "Bonsai" (=little Bush) has set up a fund to ensure future payments of retired politicians and public service pensions. (In case some future Oz government goes broke- you never know with labor in the wings!)

Future Fund managers face Labor grilling
May 22, 2007 -
Treasurer Peter Costello has backed the appointment of a foreign custodian to the nation's $51 billion Future Fund.

But managers of the fund face a grilling from Labor senators on Tuesday on the decision to appoint Chicago-based Northern Trust, which has no presence in Australia, as its global custodian.

Future Fund managers face Labor grilling - Breaking News - Business - Breaking News

Hailed here as a brilliant stroke of "good-economic management" ( a quality the Howard Government is famous for ); Howard chose the well -respected American Company Northern Trust to administer the fund. Northern Trust is known for the excellent job they do managing pension funds.

Northern Trust was the trustee of the Enron pension fund and some 20,000 employees lost up to $US1.6 billion ($1.95 billion).

Northern Trust wrongly vilified - Future Fund | NEWS.com.au Business

[Michaelangelica]

Some good Australian Radio science reporting
Science Show

New tourism campaign based on honesty

"Australia: Too Bloody Expensive and Too Bloody Far."

The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Stay in Touch

The top song in oz at the moment

Angelina, the Tattooed Lady. 29 May 2007. ABC Sydney. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Podcarst available

Angelina, the Tattooed Lady [You can also hear the song using the links to the right]

Angelina, Angelina
Ms Jolie the tattooed lady
She has lips on which you could float
But its whats on her skin that’s worthy of note
Angelina the ink wikipedia
Oh Angelina the queen of tattoo
She got Billy Bob on her arm when he was it
I don’t want to say where she’s got Brad Pitt
Let’s hope he’s the last ‘cos on the next she will sit
Wears her heart on her skin does Angelina

[Michaelangelica]

A more serious moment

Drought –
Photos: Drought - The Lab - Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gateway to Science

Unforgettable sights of a thirsty country remind us of the seemingly endless drought. But dry and variable conditions are common in Australia�s history.
Just how bad is the current drought, and what are the latest stats?
Take the photo journey to see for yourself.

[Michaelangelica]

THE LATEST NEWS

Twenty one million people by the end of the month.
(God knows how many on work permits).

We seem to punch far above our weight; or is it an inflated national Ego?

Japan and Australia form security pact

Correspondents Report - Sunday, 10 June , 2007
BRENDAN NELSON: The missile defence capability which Japan and the US is developing is specifically for targeted threats that are in the region,

Correspondents Report - Japan and Australia form security pact

Did Australia demand reversal on natives?
GLORIA GALLOWAY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
June 9, 2007 at 12:25 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Canada's decision to withdraw support for the United Nations Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples coincided with a visit to Ottawa by Prime Minister John Howard of Australia — a country that strongly opposes the declaration.

globeandmail.com: Did Australia demand reversal on natives?

As soon as snow begins to fall in the mountains it starts to get cold here. (Not even a frost though where I live)
Not many people know that Australia has ski-fields as big as Switzerland. + a lot of ski fanatics
(Many Americans seem confused by the very fact that it is winter here!?)

Australia ski season gets jump start
Posted on Saturday June 9th 2007 at 1:03 pm

It’s the start to the opening of winter 2007 Australia has been waiting for. Snow is currently falling in Perisher Blue and cold temperatures (low of -4.5°C in Blue Cow) have allowed snowmaking in Perisher Valley and Blue Cow from the early hours of today.

There is around 4-5cm (two inches) of fresh snow in the village so far today, adding to the natural snow cover from several good pre-season falls and snowmaking that has been going on for the past three weeks.

SKIREBEL Magazine » Blog Archive » Australia ski season gets jump start

Seems that more and more so called "funds" management companies are taking over Oz assets. Often to their determent. I doubt if we will ever have the resources to buy them back.
They would have pulled a 5B dollar heart out of Qantas if they managed to get it.
Very much the scenario of the movie "Pretty Woman".

Brookfield Asset Buys Australia's Multiplex for A$4.2 Billion

By Daniel Taub and Fergus Maguire

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Brookfield Asset Management Inc., North America's biggest publicly traded property manager, agreed to buy Multiplex Group for A$4.2 billion ($3.5 billion) as banks and commodities producers in Australia boost demand for offices.

The cash bid values Multiplex, builder of London's Wembley Stadium, at A$5.05 a share, 22 percent more than the stock was trading at before a takeover approach was annou

Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand

Maybe it cuts two ways?
the media here is increasingly in the thral of big companies. The local radio station broadcasts out of Brisbane 1000 + K away. Didn't even know there were local floods happening.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Australia's Macquarie Media Group said Tuesday it acquired two U.S. community newspaper publishers with a combined enterprise value of 80.1 million Australian dollars (US$67.6 million; ¤50.6 million).
Macquarie said its wholly owned subsidiary American Consolidated Media has entered into an agreement to buy 100 percent of Superior Publishing Corp., a publisher

Australia's Macquarie Media buys US local newspaper publishers
I had never heard of "force majeure" before
Wikki explains it thus

Force majeure (French for "greater force") is a common clause in contracts which essentially frees one or both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as war, strike, riot, crime, act of God (e.g., flooding, earthquake, volcano), prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract

BHP Billiton declares Australia coal force majeure, prices up
Port Newcastle in Australia

BHP Billiton Ltd has declared force majeure on thermal coal shipments from Australia`s Newcastle port because of flooding, with the lost supplies pushing spot coal prices to three-year highs on Tuesday.

Rio Tinto, the biggest exporter of thermal coal through the country`s top export terminal, said it had not declared force majeure, though other exporters said they could still do so.

The port resumed limited shipments on Tuesday after being shut down on Friday by heavy seas and torrential rain.

Mining Journal Online

The Green Party is not happy about another coal mine going in in the Upper Hunter Valley. What Global Warming?

BHP Billiton, Centennial Coal Co Ltd and certain other coal producers, which form the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG), have won the right to build a new A$500 million ship-loader at Australia’s Newcastle Port, the world’s largest coal-export terminal, to help meet soaring demand.

Mining Journal Online

China is angry that local pollies, after a bit of ingenuous dithering, decided to meet the Dali lama (B****R*DS)

Australia demands China respect its democracy
Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:28 PM IST25
By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia demanded China respect its democracy on Wednesday and said Tibet's Dalai Lama was welcome in the country at any time, despite a dressing down from Beijing over the exiled spiritual leader's current visit.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Dalai Lama, on an 11-day tour, was a significant religious figure and it was up to Australians to decide which world figures they met.

Prime Minister John Howard is scheduled to meet the Buddhist leader in Sydney on Friday, while Labor Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd met him on Tuesday night, reversing an earlier refusal.

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/new...archived=False

[PuGZ]

I've never known anyone to be so fanatical about Australia online -- I love it!

The whole Dalai Lama fiasco was pretty poor. It's worrying that our leaders would almost rather pander to the Chinese than their own populace. At least common sense won out in the end.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by PuGZ

I've never known anyone to be so fanatical about Australia online -- I love it!

The whole Dalai Lama fiasco was pretty poor. It's worrying that our leaders would almost rather pander to the Chinese than their own populace. At least common sense won out in the end.

I agree, wimps!
Rudd wants to practice his Chinese.

Has anyone seen this anywhere?

The Orstrahyun
Ozzies lurve culture.
Would have been a few thousand people there at the time.

Bonsai out of the loop

Don't let anybody tell you that prime minister John Howard isn't on top of what's going on in Iraq, particularly when it comes to the final round of deployments in the US troop "surge" that is supposed to rein in all the death and destruction :

Mr Howard said "evidence about the success so far of the surge is mixed", but he had not given up hope.

"The surge has not reached its peak and it won't reach its peak for some weeks yet," he said.

According to the US Defence Department, who'd you expect to know the facts :

The full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq -- what military leaders call a "surge" of troops to improve security and stability in the capital -- was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Howard often cites his friendship with President Bush, and his contact with the inner circle of the White House, as being evident of how the Bush administration cherishes Australia's troop commitment to the Iraq War. Clearly, they're not getting on the phone to him as often as they used to.

The Orstrahyun

But ask Howard's boys about the lies and distortions that led to the Iraq War, the AWB scandal, or why they didn't tell the voters about Workchoices before the 2004 elections and they will tell you we mustn't dwell in the past, "let's look to the future".

But what is the Howard future? Where is it? All they talk about is the past. Thirty years ago, 12 years ago, nine months ago.

90% of Australians couldn't give a tinkers about the 'Culture Wars'. Most don't even know what it is, or what it is supposed to be a war over. They are concerned about climate change and how much their children are going to be paid, and what sort of conditions they might have to work under, because these are issues about what awaits us in the future.

Australians want to look to the future, and in many ways we can't wait to get there. The fact that Australia's boom economy is based around a two thousand year old power source and we have internet speeds that are laughed at by nine year old kids in South Korea are two examples of how far behind we are in a world rapidly speeding up, and moving ahead. We know we are being left behind, and it's making us edgy.

But we don't get much in the way of vision statements or inspirational future dreaming from the federal government. All we hear about is how they are desperately trying to patch up the holes in all the promises they made, but never delivered on, while their bulldogs shout at us from Parliament via the evening news about how we've "never had it so good."

While many Australian journalists and opinion writers pretend to be mystified as to why the Labor Party remains so high in the polls, long after the Rudd honeymoon was supposed to end and Howard Corp. was to get their supposedly long overdue surge, Australians are anything but confused.

They want to know what the future holds. They want to know what's coming, and not just how good their broadband may or may not be in three years time. They want to feel like somebody is making the big plans, dreaming the big dreams and thinking of the long-term future, not just how to win the next election.

Don't tell me what you've done, Mr Howard. Tell me what kind of Australia we will be living in in ten years time, in twenty years time, in fifty years time.

An excellent Australian( pronounced orstrahyun) Blog if you want to know more;-
The Orstrahyun

[Michaelangelica]

A great week

Oz Federal Politicians gave themselves a 6.5% pay increase as they are passing twice as much legislation, now they have control of both houses. Such an increase in productivity! Inflation is only 4%!
(Nurses may be allowed a 2% increase)

Melborne & Sydney are going to build de-sal plants
Who, I hear you ask, will pay for these?

Parched Australia plans giant desalination plant
19 Jun 2007 09:57:53 GMT
Source: Reuters
Alert Me | Printable view | Email this article | RSS XML [-] Text [+]

SYDNEY, June 19 (Reuters) - Australia is planning to build one of the world's largest desalination plants as part of a $4.9 billion ($4 billion) programme to provide drinking water to the nation's second-largest city Melbourne.

The plan, announced Tuesday, followed a warning from environmental group WWF that removing salt from sea water to overcome a worldwide shortage of drinking water could end up worsening the crisis.

The Victorian state government said water bills for consumers could double to fund the A$3.1 billion plant planned for Wonthaggi, south-east of Melbourne. It also plans another A$1 billion expanding pipelines and the city's water grid.

The plan was part of a drought-proofing package to generate 150 billion litres of drinking water annually -- about one-third of Melbourne's current consumption, Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported.

Much of southern Australia has been in the grip of the worst drought in living memory and many reservoirs feeding major cities and towns are at alarmingly low levels. Water restrictions are widespread.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD122671.htm
To coincide with the release of Pirates 3 movie
the Oz government is going Spanish Maine

Australia to buy Spanish warships
CANBERRA - Australia is to buy three Spanish designed warships and two large Spanish landing ships, Prime Minister John Howard announced today.

Mr Howard said the navy would be equipped with three Navantia F100 air warfare destroyers worth a total of A$8 billion ($9.02 billion).

To be Australia's most advanced and expensive warships, they will enter service from 2013.

And in another win for Spain, the Australian navy will be equipped with two 27,000 tonne Navantia landing ships at a cost of about A$3 billion

.
Australia to buy Spanish warships - 20 Jun 2007 - NZ Herald: World / International News

"landing ships" should Indonesia or the Philippines be worried?

But,
War games are fun!

U.S., Australia Launch War Games
Associated Press | June 19, 2007
SYDNEY, Australia - Australia and the United States launched their biggest joint war games Monday, with 27,500 troops backed by a U.S. aircraft carrier engaging in exercises aimed at consolidating the allies' military dominance in the Asia Pacific region.

The biennial Talisman Sabre exercise pits 20,000 U.S. troops and 7,500 Australian forces against two fictional enemies - the Kamarians and Musorians - in a variety of land and sea-based scenarios designed to test their skills in combat, peacekeeping and humanitarian relief efforts.

The exercise, which runs until July 2, will also include 10 U.S. ships, 20 Australian ships and 125 aircraft operating off the coast of Rockhampton in northeastern Queensland state.

"The United States and Australia have a long-standing relationship ... we share the same values and interests. Foremost among those interests is the stability and security of the Asia-Pacific region," U.S. Vice Admiral Doug Crowder told reporters on board the USS Blue Ridge in Sydney.

"Therefore it is very important that our militaries train together to carry out the types of missions our governments may call upon us to execute to ensure regional security and stability," he said.

The exercise comes as the United States and Japan step up efforts to build a joint missile defense system in Asia, partly as a bulwark against regional threats, such as a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Australia, a steadfast U.S. ally that maintains around 2,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, is studying whether to participate in the defense shield, Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said this month.

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

U.S., Australia Launch War Games

[Jay-qu]

What a waste of money..

DeSal plants may be needed now, but a carefully laid plan a few years back could have avoided the need. The question is, can they be built soon enough?

I would also like to know what enviromental impacts this has, converting large amounts of water to fresh - I guess its just a literal drop in ocean..

Seriously our piddly little army doesnt stand a chance if korea, china, japan or america wanted to invade - its just there for looks and so we can be seen to 'support' other countries in wars. I think we would be better off without it - its not lazy, but minding our own business

Dont mind me Im just rambling on..